The Leah Chase School got a lifeline this week after the Orleans Parish School Board decided to keep the district’s only direct-run public school open for the next two years.
On Jan. 8, parents, teachers and community members packed a room in the office space where the school board meets to demand the district keep the school open.
“Leah Chase knew that as long as you keep moving forward, you could never be failing,” said Edgar “Dook” Chase IV, the famed chef’s grandson, during the hourslong meeting. “This school educates our students. This school will never fail.”
The Leah Chase School is named after the city’s “Queen of Creole Cuisine,” who was also the inspiration behind the Disney film The Princess and the Frog. The surrounding community, including the Chase family, are currently organizing and fundraising to keep the school open.
The uproar started less than two years after its founding. The district said the school had a declining enrollment and budget deficits projected to be more than $1 million. After a meeting in December, the board pushed the decision to close the school to this month. Since then, several community members have donated money to keep the doors open, including a $2 million donation from the grandparent of a student.
The caveat to the board’s decision is at least $865,000 must be deposited into the school’s sustainability fund by Jan. 15. If the deadline is not met, the school will close for the 2026-27 school year.
Olin G. Parker, the board’s finance chair, said he wants to make sure the money is secure and real.
“We will be in this exact same place in December of 2027 unless we address the enrollment issue,” he said. “We cannot run a school every year that loses money.”
Parker also cited the change in New Orleans’ population, which has fallen nearly 7 percent in the past four years.
Percy Marchand, the founder of IMPACT504, a nonprofit community organization, said ahead of the board’s decision that without the Leah Chase School, there would be no school for miles around the neighborhood, which could deter people from moving into the area.
“We’re concerned about the neighborhood, and the community’s future,” Marchand said. “These are our kids, this is our city’s future. And education is a huge part of that.”
The school serves around 350 students, the majority of whom are Black and Latino, according to NOLA.com. NOLA Public Schools, the district’s official name, has about 41,600 students, 75% of whom are Black.
The Leah Chase School’s roots date back to the former Lafayette Academy, a charter school that closed in 2024 after receiving an “F” rating from the state. Then-school Superintendent Avis Williams recommended that the building be repurposed as the Leah Chase School, a public, school board-operated K-5 school. This year, the school added sixth grade students, with officials hoping to expand it to pre-kindergarten to eight grade.
Marchand said IMPACT504 reached out to the district and sent several emails to the school’s website during its first year in 2024. No one answered. He assumed the school was doing well until he heard whispers about the school closing due to performance and financial issues.
The Business Council of New Orleans & the River Region, a nonprofit, nonpartisan, independent public policy advocacy organization, sent an open letter to the Orleans Parish School Board last month stating that the school is “unsustainable” and operating at a deficit greater than half a million dollars.
“New Orleans is losing population and its birth rate is declining,” the letter said. “That’s fewer taxpayers and fewer future students. Because of the declining student population, there are ample available seats in better schools.”
Marchand said the open conversations painting the Leah Chase School as a “failing school” will have lasting impacts on not just the students, but those working with them as well.
“Imagine being a teacher or principal at the school who’s busting your butt, going over the edge, going the extra mile, and all you ever hear from your elected officials is how bad the school is,” he said.
After Hurricane Katrina hit the city in 2005, New Orleans became the first all-charter system in the nation. Under the city’s school lottery system, students no longer attended schools based on where they live. Today, at least six school districts nationwide have at least 30% of their public school students enrolled in public charter schools, according to a report by the National Alliance of Public Charter Schools.
“Charters are not the enemy, I promise you. It’s an over-usage of it. That’s the enemy,” Marchand said.
The Leah Chase School received a “D” grade from the state this year. Despite the school’s improvement from the Lafayette Academy grade, the Business Council letter also said parents are “choosing other schools.”
Community members argue that the district has not properly advertised the school.
From his own pocket, Marchand said he and his organization printed out flyers to help spread the word about the open enrollment, which closes Jan. 23. He said the district told him that was not necessary because it had flyers of their own. But Marchand said he never saw them around the neighborhood — or at all.
Gabriela Biro, the school board member representing District 2, said she was at a birthday party where the majority of parents didn’t even know the school existed. If they did, they characterized the school as “the one that’s going to close,” she said.
“I don’t think enough has been done to market the school,” she said. “These charter schools put so much effort into recruiting, and [the district] has not been doing at the same level as them.”
When Biro drives through the city, usually there’s a ton of billboards for schools during the open enrollment period, but the district didn’t do that for Leah Chase, she said.
Others argue that the school has improved and needs more time to gradually increase its state rating.
“It went from a failing school to a D school, right? Which, you know, nobody’s going to throw a party about having a D rating,” said Chris Edmunds, the father of a fourth grader at the school. “Making that progress in just one year in that short amount of time frame is astounding.”
Two of the “New Orleans Four,” Gail Etienne and Leona Tate, who desegregated New Orleans Public Schools alongside Ruby Bridges in 1965, have publicly supported the school, according to WDSU 6, a local TV station.
“These parents are advocating not for privilege, but for access; not for convenience, but for dignity; not for exclusion, but for the kind of public school education they know their children deserve,” Etienne wrote in a letter to the school board. “The name Leah Chase School carries a legacy all its own.”
Biro said the letter moved her. Growing up, Biro said, Etienne was a civil rights inspiration, and receiving the letter meant more than receiving letters from organizations that may have financial ties to charter schools.
“For me, my North Star for this is a principle called ‘child honoring,’ which is like you put children first. And for me, when you are choosing to close this school, you’re putting financial choices [first],” she said.
Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated the date of the Orleans Parish School Board meeting. It was Thursday, Jan. 8.
This story has been updated.